The disclosed embodiments of the present invention relate to driving a motor device, and more particularly, to a controller chip with signal swapping capability for controlling a motor device and related method thereof.
Motor devices are widely used in a variety of electronic apparatuses. A controller chip is therefore designed to control the operation of a motor device. However, different manufactures of motor devices may have different definitions of the signal inputs, and different manufactures of controller chips may have different definitions of signal outputs. For example, a motor device may operate under the control of a differential input signal pair including a positive control signal and a negative control signal. Therefore, a controller chip is required to have a first pin intended for outputting the positive control signal and a second pin intended for outputting the negative control signal. In a case where the definition of signal outputs of the controller chip is consistent with the definition of the signal inputs of the motor device, the motor device would rotate in a correct rotational direction as desired. However, in another case where the definition of signal outputs of the controller chip is inconsistent with the definition of the signal inputs of the motor device, the motor device would not rotate in a correct rotational direction due to an incorrect polarity setting of the control signals. One conventional solution is to apply jumpers to a printed circuit board (PCB) for adequately modifying the wiring between the controller chip and the motor device. Another conventional design is to redesign the PCB layout for transmitting motor control signals with the correct polarity setting to the motor device.
The above-mentioned solutions require complicated modifications made to signal traces of the PCB and are by no means cost-effective. Thus, there is a need for an innovative controller chip design which can easily change the polarity setting of control signals sent to the motor device and thus requires no additional modification made to the signal traces routed on the PCB.